"Our special teams, in terms of coverage and returns, did a good job. But not enough to get it done," said Bears coach Dick Jauron after the team's eighth straight loss. "Paul Edinger is always the same guy to me. He's a tremendous kicker, a tremendous, reliable kicker for us."

Edinger extended his string of successful field goals to 13 with boots of 37, 48 and 50 yards.

"It feels good; I'm in a little bit of a groove," Edinger said. "It helps to kick indoors and on the AstroTurf. It feels real good right now to be a kicker. I would like to kick a bunch of extra points. If it comes down to it, I would be happy."

Maynard averaged 42.7 yards on six punts and landed three inside the 20. But Maynard's night was highlighted by a 20-yard fourth-down run on a fake punt.

"I don't know where they got that play. It was run back in '85 or so," said Maynard. "(Special-teams coach) Mike Sweatman just went through the archives and found it. It hasn't been run in 15 to 20 years, and he thought maybe it would work. We've been working on it all season, and tonight was the night. Kansas City or Oakland ran it."

Maynard faked a behind-the-back handoff to running back Rabih Abdullah, then took off for daylight.

"That's part of it, selling it," Maynard said. "That gave us a little more time to get the blockers set up. It worked to perfection, really."

Maynard said he learned out the fake was going to be called at the last moment.

"There's an alert made, especially around midfield, for a fake to be run," Maynard said. "The coaches were yelling the play out. You don't have time to think about it, really. You go out there and you react."

Maynard also doubles as Edinger's holder on field goals and extra points. Edinger's 50-yarder pulled the Bears to within 21-16 with 3:48 left in the game.

"As soon as he kicked the ball, I said, 'This kid is sweet,' as I hit him on the helmet," Maynard said. "After the game, [Edinger] said, 'Hey, I appreciate that.' He's just so consistent. You can count on him. I have never been around a guy who gets on streaks the way he does. I don't want to jinx him."

Merritt averaged 27.8 yards on four kickoff returns, including a long of 37 yards.

"Anytime you can get a short field for the offense, that's great," said Merritt, a St. Rita High School alum. "That's my goal. Ultimately, I want to take it to the house everytime. But you know that's not realistic. But if we can get it to the 30- or 25-yard line, that's good for us."